


Hope in Doom

by Siver



Series: Final Fantasy VI/Ghost Trick [29]
Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: FFVI GT AU, Final Fantasy VI AU, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22337455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siver/pseuds/Siver
Summary: The skies should have been safe, but an unexpected attacks comes with its own rewards. (Final Fantasy VI Au)
Series: Final Fantasy VI/Ghost Trick [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1169099
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Hope in Doom

Cabanela leaned against the deck rail, watching the land pass far below. Even in their current sunset-like state the skies were beautiful to his eyes. Too long had been spent feeling trapped in his body in the bigger trap of the island. The crossing from Albrook to Tzen was an anxious affair and what should have brought simple joy so quickly turned to more complication. He should have seen it coming after Alma. It hadn’t made Jowd’s reactions feel any less like a slap to the face. It became another long slow trek across the Serpent’s Trench.

There’d been moments; he held onto that one evening in particular when Jowd came to him. He told him not to look back. In truth Cabanela wasn’t sure he wanted to anyway. For that briefest time under Jowd’s exploring hands he could pretend there were no looks of suspicion, no darkness crossing that face, no sudden tension whenever they happened to briefly meet each other’s eyes. He didn’t have to see _him_ in Jowd’s looks—the him that Jowd still saw and Cabanela couldn’t blame him when he avoided mirrors for fear of the same sight. 

Still, something cracked that night. It hadn’t made much discernible difference, but a start was a start and finding Kamila had been a wonderful step forward.

But, it all held a certain distance now as the clouds sped by. They flew once more and it was liberating. The whole world was at their fingertips. Jowd, Kamila, Memry, they were off to a good start already. Now they had a ship, a safe place, Sissel might be more willing to join as well. They would find the others. Alma… They needed her. _Jowd_ needed her. They needed to be a family again. He promised he would bring them back together, and that was yet to be fulfilled.

He glanced back over the deck. Kamila stood near Memry watching her pilot and it was only a matter of time before she’d take the wheel herself. The professor stood at the opposite rail, likely lost in his own thoughts. Jowd was somewhere below decks and Cabanela skirted around all the possible reasons—avoidance at the top of the list—for that.

A dark shape in the distance caught Cabanela’s eye. It was moving fast, whatever it was and startling against the normally so empty skies.

Cidgeon whipped around. “But that’s… Memry, change course. Now!” he barked.

"Hold on!" Memry called.

Cabanela gripped the rail and drew his sword, as they took a sudden sharp turn and kept his gaze fixed on the approaching shape. For the professor to sound so urgent this had to be a real threat.

The turn didn't seem to do much good. The thing only turned with them, following as surely as if they hadn't made the move at all.

Memry veered the other way, sending them all swaying with the abrupt motions of the ship. Kamila drew her crossbow.

It was too close now. Cabanela could clearly see its bat-like wings, ragged and dark, and a horned skull-like head. A screech rent the air and it came to hover just above the deck. Kamila sent a barrage of bolts into it, but whether they had much effect or not was difficult to tell.

"We'll fend it off," Cidgeon said and sent a torrent of water washing over the creature. "Memry, get us away."

Jowd barrelled up from the stairway and only after the briefest hesitation to absorb the sight, launched himself at the creature and Cabanela darted after. The creature swiped at Jowd. Jowd jumped back, avoiding it, and Cabanela caught its claw on his sword. An opening and one Jowd took full advantage of to land a hard punch before rolling back. Cabanela sent a shock of lightning through his sword and ducked to the side as the creature reeled from the combined blows.

This felt natural, the way they weaved around each other as certain as any dance, knowing Jowd's moves as surely as he seemed to know his, as if the intervening years had never happened. He still had Jowd’s back, always, and as Jowd blocked a blow aimed for him, Cabanela knew he still had his.

The creature shot up into the air above chased by another hail of crossbow bolts. Then Cabanela felt it—a tingle of magic that washed over him leaving his skin crawling like a fever. It was all wrong and he knew with an absolute certainty he could not let this happen.

"Jowd, watch out!" Cabanela leapt forward, sword at the ready to absorb whatever terrible magic the creature was about to cast.

Darkness filled his vision. A chill pierced him and… Nothing.

Jowd hopped back at Cabanela’s warning. There wasn’t much he could do with the creature out of reach, but Kamila and Cidgeon kept up their onslaught of crossbow bolts and aqua rakes. A cloud of inky fog burst up around Cabanela. Instead of funnelling into his sword as Jowd expected it lingered and Jowd could swear he caught a brief glimpse of a skull in the swirling mist. Then before the feeling of foreboding could fully settle it faded. Cabanela collapsed bonelessly onto the deck, his sword clattering beside him with a ringing sound that was deafening in what seemed to Jowd a sudden silence. 

He stared down at Cabanela’s prone form, feeling as though a cloud, frozen instead of dark, had descended around him as well. He was faintly aware of the continuing battle, but it was nothing before the sight of Cabanela sprawled at his feet, his eyes open in an empty and glassy stare. He was never so still. He was never meant to be so still.

Jowd dropped to his knees next to him. This wasn’t a new sight. He’d held vigil over his form before, a brief ephemeral thing. It had been easier to think him dead—it would be easier on him wouldn’t it?—where he wouldn’t have to suffer this ruined world. That Jowd still lived was merely another joke—a suitable punishment. It was better. He convinced himself the image before him was for the better. This dead world had nothing for the likes of Cabanela. Let them all fade.

And that image always did fade as if to prove his point. Not now. The familiarity of the sight he painted so many times in the darkest days did nothing to soften this blow. If anything it felt worse. He should fade. The man should spring up at any moment ready to leap into the fray again, but those empty eyes told a different story. This sight remained steadfastly solid and present, all too real and all too wrong.

Jowd lifted Cabanela’s shoulders to cradle him close and his head lolled over his arm. Like a rag doll, Jowd thought with an inward shudder. A puppet now broken as the Jester wanted. So very human and vulnerable after all.

He reached a shaking hand to close his eyes. Cabanela could rest at last. The man could stop throwing himself away like trash for trash, what a waste. Wasn’t this what he wanted for him?

This wasn’t what he wanted at all.

All the things he could never find the words for had nowhere to go. Cabanela was gone, truly gone now.

“I’m sorry.” He almost laughed. Maybe he could have if the weight in his chest wasn’t so suffocating. What was the point? Cabanela was far out of reach of hollow apologies. Nothing he said could fix anything now and he was a fool for ever entertaining the tiniest of what-ifs. Maybe this really was hell after all. Just another round of a fruitless game.

He let his hand drop to Cabanela’s chest over his heart where it should have been beating as fiercely as the man lived. Now it was as still as he was and… Jowd frowned, not daring to believe the faintest flutter he thought he felt.

No, that was impossible. This was nothing more than a meaningless spark of hope he thought long gone. The one he didn’t dare believe had rekindled—that painful spark Cabanela brought back only to take away once more with him and wasn’t that fitting? Nothing more. And yet…

He reached for the revival magic. Foolish, probably a waste of time, but this was the one time he could hardly make things worse, could he?

Cabanela’s chest heaved. A deep breath and several slow blinks later, Jowd found himself staring into those eyes he’d spent so much time trying to avoid only to think it too late.

“Jowd, what—mmph.”

Whatever else Cabanela started to say died into a muffled sound as Jowd pulled him to his chest.

“Don’t do that again,” Jowd growled as the world came back into sharper focus and the dull roar faded from his ears. _Don’t throw yourself away for the likes of me._

They were hurtling through the sky. Memry yelled something and it took a moment to absorb her words.

“Yeah! Stay out of my skies and don’t come back!”

Kamila sent a last volley of bolts, but the creature was fading from view fast now. He gripped Cabanela, warmer now and alive. They made it. He was alive.

“What was that?” Kamila panted.

“Doomgaze, I would guess,” Cidgeon replied flatly. “A demon long since sealed away. Hmph, we’ll have to be more careful. If it’s been freed any number of other fiends may be out there too.”

He crossed the deck to Jowd and Cabanela, leaving Memry to mutter at the wheel and Kamila attempting soothing words.

“Are you two all right?”

At some point Cabanela’s hand had worked its way into gripping Jowd’s arm. He was very much alive. He was all right, despite it all. And he had nearly given up on him. Again. Jowd abruptly pulled away, stood and lifted Cabanela to his feet with him—was he lighter than he used to be? He kept a hand at Cabanela’s shoulder, steadying—not that _he_ should need such a thing.

“We’re fine,” Jowd said, his attention still firmly fixed on Cabanela, and touched his face, no longer slack and pale. Would he ever be able to replace that image? He seemed all right. Maybe a little dazed, but no worse for wear.

At some distant point in another lifetime Jowd might have taken some pleasure in the surprise written over Cabanela’s face at his touch. Look, he could catch him off guard. Now it was suddenly all too much. That look, that _care_ in his eyes. Much too much and undeserved and he turned away, releasing him all at once.

Everyone else was safe and that was all that really mattered and he hurried back to the stairs below deck.

Cabanela stared at Jowd’s retreating back, the warmth of his touch still lingering on his cheek. That had just happened, whatever that was. He tried to rerun the past—few?—minutes. Goddesses, he was sick of losing time. He’d tried to absorb the demon’s spell and the next thing he knew he was in Jowd’s arms. The intervening time was a blank; something had clearly gone wrong, but that part, that hadn’t been wrong at all. He still… cared.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Cidgeon asked.

“Just fiiine, prof.”

Cabanela knelt, blindly reached for his fallen sword and rose again, sheathing it as he went, all without removing his gaze from the stair way.

“A demon’s magic,” he faintly Cidgeon say. “You were lucky. I wouldn’t try absorbing it again like that if I were you.”

No luck about it. Jowd was there. There’d been a moment of simple… safety. He had him and this time the ship remained intact and he was still here and Jowd was still there.

“Cabanela?”

“Mhmm.”

“Bah.”

Cidgeon moved away with a shake of his head. Cabanela stared at the door for several seconds longer before finally pulling himself away to saunter over to the rail. The clouds were as red-stained as ever. The light as dull as ever. But every cloud had its silver lining. He leaned on the rail and couldn’t help a smile at the lingering memory of Jowd’s arms, his heart so rapid in Cabanela’s ears, but present and alive. Blessings did come from unexpected places and despite all the horrors there was hope. The world seemed just a bit more beautiful.


End file.
